‘Is the institution of marriage under threat? Then let’s do away with it.’ This was the heading of an article which appeared in one of the Kenyan daily newspapers some months ago. The writer was inspired by a case in which a husband had murdered his wife and two sons in cold blood before committing suicide by hanging himself with a rope inside the same house. This was just one such case where husbands and wives have turned against each other and children against their own parents. The writer went on to point out that even in the western world, marriage has lost its meaning as men and women have taken to sexually befriending and marrying each other in same sex unions. The writer argued that marriage is the most peculiar, irrational, selfish and restrictive institution ever invented on the planet earth; and concludes with a hope that future generations will have the moral courage to abolish it because the human race can continue without it.

One day while discussing with a parishioner about the alarming rate at which present day marriages break, she jokingly stated that when couples go to the altar to exchange their vows, they come out altered. In April the world almost came to a standstill as William and Kate pronounced the words, ‘for better or for worse’ in a royal wedding which estimates suggest had attracted 2 billion people all over the world.

The world as we know loves a love story and thirsts for narratives of hope in difficult times. This is what a wedding offers. As the bride and the groom exchange their marital vows, they envision a future full of love and happiness. Unfortunately, marriage bliss sometimes doesn’t last forever. Few marriages these days are free from tangled family constellations. To be exact, there seems to be more cases of divorce than there are of weddings. How then can the church help couples to learn to forgo the many little liberties in marriage?

Parishes should promote family ministry by forming groups whose goal is to spread the Good News of family life by helping others to rediscover the beauty of married and family life. The group should network with other family life organisations, church groups and agencies in order to promote a vision of greater family focus in the church, based on the values of the holy family. Priests should also encourage their parishioners on the need to renew and foster family life and reach out to couples with problems by offering them means of healing and reconciliation.

Marriage is not a contract, marriage is a commitment and becoming one flesh simply means that the two people share everything they have; not only their bodies, not only their material possession, but also their thinking and their feelings, joys and sufferings, hopes and fears, successes and failures. Through family ministry, the church can help couples realise that marriage is something you enjoy and not something you endure. The family is the domestic church, thus if we have healthy and stable families then we will have healthy and stable individuals, healthy and stable parishes and a healthy and stable society. May the spirit of God encourage husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters to learn to appreciate one another and to be grateful for the gift of family.